Ride-hailing service provider Ola’s plans to foray into electric scooter manufacturing is gaining pace as the firm has entered talks with four State governments for 100 acres of unencumbered land to build a new facility.
Back in May, after acquiring Amsterdam-based electric scooter maker Etergo BV, Ola Electric announced that it will enter the premium electric scooter market both on the global and national scale.
Ola’s top management is in discussions with four State governments – three from south and one in the west – to build the world’s largest electric scooter facility with an annual capacity of two million units.
To put it into context, Honda manages to produce 1.2 million ICE scooters from its Gujarat plant every year.
The firm plans to start production in 18 months’ time and sources state that the EV plant will embrace Industry 4.0, run on solar power and also have test tracks.
When the first Ola electric scooter goes on sale, the taxi aggregator-turned-EV maker will compete against Bajaj Auto, Hero Electric, Ather Energy, among others.
Recently, many States, the most recent of which was Telangana, have come up with their own EV policies in order to boost EV manufacturing within their boundaries.
Companies have been offered various incentives, while buyers too can save some cash should they intend to purchase an electric vehicle.
Currently in its infant stage, the Indian electric vehicle ecosystem is set to boom quite rapidly, if reports and estimates are to be believed. However, in the first six months of this fiscal year, only 7552 electric scooters were sold in the nation.
Ola Electric Scooter
- Ola is looking for land to set up its EV manufacturing plant
- To be the world’s largest, the site will have two million units capacity
- Production of Ola electric scooter is set to commence from 2022
Source – ETAuto.com